


Such was the Stillness

by Vampiric_Charms



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 04:57:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9641639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiric_Charms/pseuds/Vampiric_Charms
Summary: An uneventful night, filled with wine and music and love.  A balm, truly, a release for pains pushed aside and rarely forgotten - until, quite suddenly, there is no longer space in one’s heart for the suffering.  Not a miracle so much aswarmth, come to chase the fears away.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RowanBaines](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowanBaines/gifts).



> This was written as a (belated) birthday gift for **RowanBaines**. Happy, happy birthday, lovely!
> 
> It is set at an undetermined (and not necessarily relevant) time. Fingolfin is king, Maedhros is rescued, Fingon is...Fingon. Some teeny, tiny mentions of what could potentially be Maedhros ignoring PTSD. Still, about as fluffy as I’ll get in this fandom. As always, thank you to Naamah_Beherit for reading through this the moment it was finished.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

“It went well, wouldn’t you say?”

Maedhros glanced over his shoulder at Fingon, who was gazing down the long banquet table at the mess of plates and goblets and platters left behind in the flickering of weary candelabras.  He chuckled and turned to the window to watch the full moon high overhead trying to cast pale light over the darkening halls of Hithlum through wisps of thick cloud.  “You act as though this were a dreary war meeting, Finno, and not a celebration of the solstice,” he said with a small laugh that echoed through the room, empty save the two of them.  “Of course it went well.  Everyone got quite drunk and had a marvelous time.”

Fingon just hummed behind him, a sound somewhere between a laugh of his own and a note of disagreement.  “As you say,” he finally muttered, still wringing his hands.  “Though this is the first one Father let me plan on my own, I just -”

“It was fine,” Maedhros interrupted gently, “and you should not worry yourself.  All of your guests were thrilled to be in the presence of the crown prince, even if the king was not in attendance this year.  I _promise_ ,” he added with a lopsided grin.  “Let the amount of wine consumed be the answer if you will not take my word.  Everyone was so very happy.  It was like old times, if only for a few hours.”

Fingon was quiet for a moment, considering this response, before finally holding out a beckoning hand and smiling softly.  “Thank you,” he murmured, “for coming so far from your home for a single meal.  It was such a silly request, I know, and I appreciate it more than I can say.”

Maedhros stepped away from the window, leaving the view of the moon behind, and approached his side to momentarily twine their fingers together.  “I will never turn down your invitation.”

The smile he received in response seared through him, calming the soft smolder of alcohol in his stomach and soothing the now always-present fear of being still that tingled in his limbs, keeping him anxious and restless.  He pulled his fingers away and blew out several of the candles closest to him on the table.  Others were already near to burning themselves out without assistance and it was growing dim with only the fires in the several hearths to see by.  

“Shall we turn in, then?”

“Mm, yes,” Fingon consented without hesitation, stretching his arms overhead with a barely stifled yawn that turned into a contented sigh.  He snaked a hand around Maedhros’s elbow, tugging him close, and it was apparent then that wine was making his own actions loose enough for the contact to be given so freely.  But truly, Fingon had always been free with his affections between them, and had only attempted to keep such things private at Maedhros’s request here in this violent new land.

Regardless, Maedhros allowed himself to be guided through the large, empty room, their footfalls loud around them as Fingon let his head fall inelegantly against his cousin’s shoulder.  Perhaps they were both a bit heavier with the wine than first thought, though Maedhros only grinned rather than shy away as he normally would in public.  It was late; no one was here to catch sight of them.  

“Shall I be a good king one day, do you think?”

The question was quiet and tired, and full of so many others unasked yet still heard, but Maedhros was not given a chance to respond when Fingon suddenly gave a cry of delight and jerked away from him.  Maedhros looked around, rather startled, and watched as he moved to the far corner of the hall, now cast almost fully in darkness spotted with beams of moonlight from the arched windows.  

_The clouds must have parted_ , he thought distractedly before actually noticing what Fingon had made a beeline for.  

“Look, Nelyo, look, one of the musicians left her harp!”    

Sure enough, the gleaming body of a harp rested there under Fingon’s excited hands as he danced around it with a smile cracked broadly across his face.  It was large, crafted with spruce and maple in need of a polish, and the thirty four strings were practically vibrating with Fingon’s happy energy so near to them.  Maedhros approached slowly, watching with a fondness he had not felt in a very long time as Fingon pulled the musician’s stool over and sat.

“She won’t mind, will she,” he said absently, his mind already taken with the idea as he gently pulled the top of the soundboard back until the crook rested easily against his shoulder, “if I play a little?  Surely she won’t.”

“No,” Maedhros agreed softly as he came to Fingon’s side, “I am sure she will not mind.”

He ran his fingers across the strings in quick thirds, plucking out chords, before going back to run up the full scales in all the octaves the harp had.  His smile widened.  “It has such a lovely sound,” he whispered wistfully, the expression on his face clear enough that his memories were elsewhere.  “Nelyo, when was the last time you sang?”

The question took Maedhros back abruptly for a moment, darkness and the foul stench of decay coming to the forefront before any other memory could take hold.  “Oh,” he said quickly, shaking his head and looking away uncomfortably.  “Not - not since…”

As he always somehow did, Fingon understood.  He hummed a soothing response, the sound mingling with the unnamed melody drifting from the harp.  What had been left unsaid hung between them like some rotten thing, and Fingon murmured, “Not since that lovely day up on the mountain, in the beating sun with all the dust and blood and severed appendages?  Is that the time you mean?”

Maedhros whipped his head around, stunned, and Fingon’s wide blue eyes stared back at him innocently.  Maedhros could not help the bark of laughter that tore from his throat, a touch of relief at the levity Fingon brought when he himself could so easily spiral away mixed with the alcohol giving him a lense of hilarity on the current situation.  It was all so easy here, so easy to love and so easy to laugh.  

“ _One_ appendage, Finno, it was only one!  You make it sound as though you performed daring cliffside surgery on all my limbs, when you really only hacked off my _hand_ and nearly dropped me off the back of a giant bird.”

Fingon’s guffaw in return was a blessing, a balm to Maedhros’s soul, and his fingers continued to pluck the strings of the harp in random intervals, not sure yet what they wanted to play.  “Sit with me,” he said after a moment.  “Please.”

Maedhros did, lowering himself to the veined marble floor at Fingon’s side and resting his back against his booted calf.  Those random sounds turned into a familiar melody, echoing up into the high arched ceiling and off the tapestry-draped stone walls.  The notes rose and fell, calling forth days lying in fields of flowers with petals so fragrant as they lifted into the wind, evenings spent under silver branches bathed with ceaseless light - but the lyrics, the aching words that should be accompanying such beautiful music, never came.  Maedhros let his head fall back on Fingon’s thigh, gazing up at him curiously.

He received a delicate smile, fragile around the edges, and the song shifted into something different, something new and fast-paced.  “We are not allowed to speak our old tongue here, are we.”  Fingon sighed as the tune changed completely.  “I would not wish to be caught doing so, even in singing.  It...has been a very long time for me, as well,” he admitted into the music, “raising my voice in song.”

Maedhros turned his head, pressing his cheek into the soft fabric of Fingon’s breeches as he stared out across the dark banquet hall slotted now with beams of moonlight, and listened as Fingon began to sing.  It was an easy melody, nothing deeply moving in the lyrics or over-ambitious in the octave, but he curled his arm up around Fingon’s leg to grasp his knee.

One song turned into another, and another.  Maedhros did not leave his place at Fingon’s side, and at one point between songs when he turned again to discern a reason for the pause, Fingon leaned down to kiss him.  It was an awkward kiss, with the harp’s soundboard in the way to make movement difficult, and Fingon’s lips landed closer to Maedhros’s eye than his mouth.

“I apologize for almost dropping you,” Fingon whispered against his skin, his breath tickling against Maedhros’s face until he scrunched his nose at the sensation.  Fingon just grinned and pressed a second lingering kiss to his temple, a third to the hairline on his forehead.  “Though I truly do not think it happened that way.”

“It did, I was there.”

Fingon laughed brightly and sat up, his fingers already moving across the strings again as he found something else to play, and Maedhros closed his eyes as beautiful warmth, so rare and so sought after, thrummed sweetly in his chest.

He was finally content to remain still.   



End file.
